Genesis
by GayDown
Summary: "I remember many things. I remember being at a shoreline. Watching a little grey fish heave itself up on the beach..." -Castiel, The Man who would be King


Castiel stood on the edge of the world and waited patiently as the shining waves- relentless in their fierce battle against the land- battered against the shoreline as though it had personally affronted them. His gaze, focused and intense, moved across the wast waters like a searchlight occasionally dipping below the icy waves to catch a glimpse of the approaching souls of whose arrival had been told for eons. It was amongst the first stories told to Angels on the occasion of their creation; a story and a promise of things to come, the foretelling of a colossal mass of potential.

Castiel felt privileged to be one of the few stationed on earth to witness the souls arrival. It was a gift he had never anticipated, passed down through the celestial chain for commence, down to his lowly post as one of the younger Angels, who, having only existed for 12 billon, 274 million, 315 thousand and 700 seconds- had a shining grace far less luminescent than many of his brothers and sisters.

His charge was to oversee the happenings here, on this single planet amongst thousands, and report back to his post in the eternal realm replaying all he had seen. Castiel didn't know what to make of it all. It was the highest of honours but this story, he knew, was of great importance. It felt epic, enormous and soul changing and not just for one but for the shape of existence itself. He had felt it as he had descended down through the troposphere, each particle, each molecule, which had one been seemingly random, was crying out so loudly now that their call had become a crescendo.

It was beautiful and it was haunting. It was _glorious_.

Pulsing rhythmically as anticipation thrummed through the channels and threads of his being, Castiel shifted to adjust himself to the confining nature of the plane around him. His home, a shiftless dance of intergalactic space and far-flung atoms, a constant cycle of action and reaction, light and intent, was far more accommodating to the sheer existence of an Angel than the surface of the earth was. Castiel had to dim his glow substantially, tucking in his wings and various appendages, just to keep from converting the ocean before him into a fog of steam and salty mist.

The change in the air was almost instant, and Castiel steeled himself, dimming his glow even more, as he caught the flickering movement further up the shore. Balancing upon the tethers between worlds, Castiel shifted time and space to rest beside the source of the movement Something tighter than the anticipation he had felt before curled inside his core as he looked down to the sandy mud, just at the break between land and sea.

The first thing Castiel noticed was that the fish was small and grey its scaled skin slick with salt and mud. It flopped upon the grainy shore, out of the watery deep with ragged gasping breaths. The small slits to each side of its being- gills, Castiel's twining knowledge told him, that fluttered panically as if blindly searching for something beyond its grasp. Despite this the creatures soul shone brightly with hues of fire lit gold splashed with the hints of spinning silver. It churned inside of the creature with so much warmth a vibrancy that for a moment Castiel felt dim in comparison.

Seemingly aware of its audience, the fish halted its struggling movements, its glossy black eyes wide with terror as it stilled completely, so that it gave barely a movement, aside from the persistent quivering of its gills as they sucked hungrily at the abrasive air around them.

"All is well little one." Castiel cooed, though not so much were his words a voice as they were a resonance; the atoms in the air harmonising together with minute vibrations. "I will not harm you."

Castiel was aware that the creature could not understand his words, but he also knew that it would understand his intent through his tone and, more importantly through the soft bursts of light that permeated through the darkness from his own core. He moved tentatively closer, allowing his warmth to seep into the fish's damp skin, be he drew back with a shard intake as he noticed the second thing-

This life, this fish was _broken_.

Mutated and misshapen it lay in the sand as though its very structure was deformed right down to its base matter. Ill-formed fleshy flaps, unrecognisably mangled on each side of its body twitched but mostly lay limp caked in mud. Whether by design or chance the creature breathed each permeated breathe as though in excruciating pain.

The sadness Castiel felt at the realisation was too deep, it was the type of sadness that was as aching and dry as a desert. His first thought was to cast the mud fish back into the water, the tenderness and pity in Castiel agreed, sounding out over the thought inside of him that believed it would just be kinder to end it now.

Stricken by the thoughts, Castiel faltered, despite all things the soul before him burned white hot. He felt all thoughts of pity and doubt for the creature, pushed to the crevices of his being, fading into nothing confronted with the shine of the creature's soul that pleaded and called out to him quietly, though Castiel supposed that if the creature would have dragged up enough air to make the sound its soul would have been louder.

"Castiel." A sonant voice sounded behind him as pure and flawless as stuck crystal. "Your feelings of ill ease have reached us brother. What is it that pains you?"

_Naomi._

"This creature-" Castiel said not turning to Naomi as he spoke. "Every breath is made in agony, every heartbeat laden with unnecessary suffering-"

Naomi cut him off somewhat harshly. "As it was always meant to."

"But it is in pain."

"And it will grow all the stronger for it. It must brother if it intends to survive. "A small and uncharacteristic wisp of comfort made its way across the link of the two stars. Despite himself Castiel eased into it, the threads of his being loosening minutely at the action. It was less comforting however when he returned his attention to the fish beneath him trembling so fully that it almost seemed impossible for it to remain in on piece.

"May I help it further up the shore?" Castiel heard himself ask suddenly. His light ached with the want to comfort the creature as he was being comforted, to brush against its coiled soul and hold it against his being. To keep it safe and away from harm.

Naomi shook her head. "No Castiel." Her tone held a frustrated inflection that made Castiel bristle and pull away from her, scolded as though he was nothing more than a fledgling.

"Be patient brother and you shall understand this moment's importance for all of us. The stories tell of this creature's accent Castiel," his sister continued, softening her tone with some effort. "This soul will be the first of many. Grotesque as its appearance may be this creature she be the first in the establishment of its species evolution. A complex process that has been set in motion long before breadth of wind and light was given to this world."

"This creature must suffer in its life in order to carve the path for… _evolution_?"

Naomi's silence was confirmation enough.

Castiel bowed his head and stepped back from the shore, further up the sand. Never before had he heard of such a thing, the adaptation and changing of a soul so fully that it would become something so much larger than itself-

"I understand sister." Castiel said his head bowed slightly as he kept his gaze from both the fish and his sibling.

His sister's gaze on his form was distantly pensive and analytical all in the same moment, as though she could see and know of something Castiel couldn't.

"You are to return home to your post once your task has been completed," she said then added, "Do not interfere with this soul's path Castiel, your task is to watch and nothing more."

"Yes sister."

She inclined her head, and then between one moment and the next, she disappeared from the earthly plane ascending back into the celestial plane in a glimmer of white fire.

Castiel however remained behind. He stood on the edge of the world and watched as dark gave way to the sun as it crawled up from the horizons belt, alighting the sky in soft lovely hues of pink and white.

He stood beside the fish struggling to pull itself to its imagined goal, rooted to the sticking point as the soul of the creature wept and sung and screamed for assistance, while all around it was a shining light so wide and deep that Castiel, for the first time in all his existence felt small in comparison.

In spite of this Castiel stood and watched as he had been ordered. For this story was nowhere near its end.

This was just the beginning.


End file.
